


I’ll grab my light and go with you

by protaganope



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Can be read as ship or not, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Insomnia, M/M, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Self-Harm, Sleep Deprivation, This was a vent fic that turned kin ig, Trichotillomania, mention of flashbacks, my kink is comfort ive never received
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 05:31:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18986266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/protaganope/pseuds/protaganope
Summary: Bucky wakes them both up again with his screaming.





	I’ll grab my light and go with you

**Author's Note:**

> (Title from “My Blood” by Twenty One Pilots)
> 
> i wrote this all at like 3am half delirious and on impulse,, pls don’t come for me if there are mistakes or something.

Bucky wakes them both up again with his screaming.

 

He tries to hide it, of course. But it’s rather difficult to downplay. He lunges off the bed, muscles taut, finely tuned. Breathing ragged, every intake is a clawing struggle as his hair, damp from sweat and sticking to his forehead, knots and takes his vision from him.

 

He staggers and bangs his limbs hard enough to bruise as he drops to the floor. The serum heals him fast enough for him to watch them turn from red to black in a matter of moments. 

 

It’s calming, actually. To know that his body is his own, can remember this happening before and understanding.

 

The bruises are gone and his breathing is turning as even as it can be. A cold sweat slides down his neck. He parts his hair down the middle and forces it to sit behind his ears.

 

It’s 2am. The bed had never looked appealing, and the dim light illuminating it from the window doesn’t help. It sits there, all faux innocence, at Bucky. Who’s sitting in the corner, wedged between a desk and some drawers. His shoulders press into the edges of the wood and the sensation helps, somewhat. To be contained, protecting.

 

It’s still too much. He throws himself up into a standing position and if he were anyone else he’d see stars.

 

Actually, he might be experiencing that, but it’s hard to trust his perception without HYDRA performing maintenance.

 

(He hasn’t eaten in four days, so it probably wouldn’t actually make any difference. He hasn’t slept in what must be a week, either. He knows the only reason he hasn’t died yet is because of the serum, he’s not completely gone.)

 

His eyes take in the room, past the bed, this time. Dart back and forth in the night, still searching for wandering dreams that were better suited as nightmares, but Bucky knew better. Knew what he had been shown tonight had been a mercy on his soul.

 

He’d seen that particular dream before. The shock factor was lessening. 

 

Sometimes— he says that, but there’s a loose pattern, always when he isn’t at all ready, and he can tell right before it happens if it’s going to be pretty— he’s hit with a new memory of what he did under the Soldier. These always hit harder, the images so unfamiliar and raw, so weighted. Like they could jump out of his head and manifest in front of him. And for all he knows, they could. 

 

Bucky tries not to think about that too often.

 

He settles for pacing about his room, quiet as he had been taught (trained like a dog, some part of him pressed) so that the only sound in the room was his frustrated breaths, the click of wet eyes. 

 

A car passes rather noisily outside, and he strains to make sure it really does leave the street instead of stopping and... Do what? He doesn’t know. That’s ridiculous, he thinks uselessly, as his body does not allow him the reassurance of compliance with its own brain. Typical. If he was any less mentally stable he’d be the same as some old lady’s feral chihuahua.

 

He huffs a sad laugh. It’s a stretch to even call it such.

 

After a while he crosses his arms, disrupting his walking cadence a little.

 

He knows logically the room must be cold, he’d fumbled with the temperature buttons for a solid fifteen minutes before yielding and asking, politely as he could to the chirping AI in the walls, to make it cold enough for him actually try to attempt sleep. The room feels like it’s on fire. Bucky’s flushed and it feels like ants are on his skin. In his skin. They’re inside his limbs, eating him. He’s just their food, another carcass to desecrate- 

 

Bucky jerks awake with a whimper that he bites away. He’s collapsed on the floor at the foot of his bed like a doll, strings cut. When did that...? His lip numbs then threatens to bleed.

 

He makes an impulse decision, and feels the weight of those words in that order all at once before shoving it deep into his core and slamming the lid on the metaphorical trash can of feelings he isn’t yet ready to process. 

 

The door opens with the slightest creak, but it splinters through Bucky’s brain like he’d started belting out _the_ _Star_ _Spangled_ _Banner_. He doesn’t want to wake Steve, knows he doesn’t sleep well either but is marginally (because that’s all his pride could allow him to admit) better at not letting himself turn into a brooding child due to lack of sleep. Bucky knows he hasn’t been the best of company these past couple of days. He winces, looks around the hall for signs of disturbance. The small night-lights are still plugged securely into each available socket as he slinks pathetically down to the kitchen. A welcome familiarity. He’d scoffed at them when he’d first seen them.

 

He can’t be more grateful for them right now.

 

Head low, he keeps walking, only to stop dead where the hall bleeds into the sitting room and kitchenette. There are a lot of lights on, a lot of lamps on.

 

Sat on the couch, blanket drooping over his legs like old-timers did back home (Home? When did he-) was Steve. And that punk looked truly a domestic sight, a few toes creeping out from the small covers, mouth open and almost snoring in the heavy breathing he hadn’t lost despite not having asthma anymore. A book lay in his lap, obviously having fallen from his grip as he had lost the fight to go to the land of sleep. 

 

Steve had heard Bucky rucking about at 2am half out of his mind, and had come out here in case Bucky had needed him.

 

He’s touched.

 

A sudden thought hits him. This certainly isn’t the first time he’s woken up and broken the skin on his hand trying to muffle screams, and he hadn’t even had the mind to even do it properly this time, so overtaken with it was he. He never usually leaves his room after that.

 

How often has Steve sat here like this, waiting for him, trusting him? Bucky isn’t safe, he has those people’s words in his head and a brain that still won’t work right after weeks of being away from what he used to know, not having them do that shit again. Something pangs in his chest, and he tries dutifully to squash it into nothing.

 

It doesn’t work, because Steve twitches and Bucky stops breathing.

 

He wakes up, slowly, eyes bleary and yawning with a snap of his pink gums and white teeth. Bucky is hit with a vision of gnashers in much worse condition than that last time he saw them, but he lets it go. It’s been seventy years, after all.

 

Buck? He says, voice sunken in sleep, more to the air where Bucky’s hiding than him himself and it takes everything in Bucky not to sprint back to the smug aura of the bed and his shitty breathing exercises. Those came from his therapist, the most recent one, the one who seemed to prefer the sound of her own voice over attempting to make any actual conversation. He liked her. Kind of. She hadn’t made him want to growl. The uncomfortable nature of things didn’t increase with her presence. 

 

Steve makes an empathetic, emotional, _wet_ sound and beckons him over. And Bucky complies, because, it’s Steve, and he’d do anything for him, words or not.

 

He presses close to Steve and is rewarded with some of the blanket. Bucky’s feet are cold, but Steve doesn’t seem to notice, and they sit there for a little while. Bucky feels his heart rate slow down, feels his muscles start to want to relax. 

 

If you want to talk about it, I’m here, Steve says to him.

 

If he could, he’d cry. He settles for pulling on his hair as his breath stumbles in his throat, and Steve, that _punk_ , Bucky can’t help but think, cups his hands over Bucky’s and pulls them out of their death grip. Shushes him with a palpable affection and rubs with careful fingers where Bucky had started to lose strands of hair. He knows if he looks up at him, he really will break apart.

 

The kneading and gentle scratches become more than just distraction though, and Bucky finds himself leaning into it, breathing deeply, heavy, but even. His eyelids grow weighted.

 

Maybe someday, he returns, and his eyes flick up just in time to catch the furrowing of Stevie’s brow.

 

(Stevie?)

 

Okay, Steve says. Okay, Buck.

**Author's Note:**

> i wasn’t sure what to tag this with? so if you think the tags need revising pls let me know👀
> 
> comments and kudos are appreciated !!


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